33A20.    Proverbs 31:10-13, 19-20, 30-31.  “When one finds a worthy wife, her value is far beyond pearls.  Her husband, entrusting his heart to her, has an unfailing prize.”  A worthy wife means that she is a woman of great worth.  With her he has a spectacular thoughtful gold mine of a woman. She is unbounding riches, a treasure of boundless productivity.  She is a bonanza of goodness who makes the ultimate use of the capabilities that God has given her.  That is what today’s Gospel calls us to.

Matthew 25:14-30.   Life is a gift that we were not able to ask for, since no one can ask for anything if someone is not living.  While life is a gift, it is at the same time a demand, that we live the life that we have been given and live it to the fullest. In giving us life, God gives or shares with us something of his very self, as a mother shares something of herself in giving life to her child.  Our gospel parable says that the master “entrusted his possessions to them.” In this case his possessions are what belongs to the master, in the sense that his possessions are a share in what makes up who he is.

He shared his possessions “to each according to his ability”, so that each person had the capacity to develop or grow those possessions or gifts.  They are gifts or talents that enable us to make something more of ourselves, likes seeds that have the capacity to grow, so to develop us, and so make us more of who our master is. The master has great joy which he shares with his servants when he sees his servants mature by developing their God-given gifts, as does a parent who sees ones’ children develop beautifully and graciously.  The servants who were productive with the talents or gifts given them saw or viewed this as an opportunity or privilege from which they and their master could benefit.  On the other hand, the servant who buried his talent or gift saw this as a threat issued to him by a master whom he feared.  The servant who refuses to live his God-given life to the fullest but instead buries his potential to develop and grow is choosing to bury his life, his very self.  The choice is to move up or down but never to stand still in the same place.  That, of what God gives us and we do not use, withers or is lost.  God no longer puts any more of his efforts or grace in those who refuse to grow in Christ.  Instead God puts even more of his grace into those who choose to be productive.  Why should God waste his time and effort on what is useless?   “For to everyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich” in the abundance of God’s goodness in him.

1 Thessalonians 5:1-6.  “The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.”  “The day of the Lord’ is the day when Jesus comes the second time at the end of the universe but also can be the day when the Lord calls us individually from this world.  Jesus said in the parable of the ten virgins, “Therefore, stay awake, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” (Matthew 25:13)

“For all of you are children of the light and children of the day.”  The children of the darkness refuse to take seriously that we can be called to face our Judge at any time.  Readiness is to live every moment in the Lord who is the light.

33A.   Proverbs 31:10-13, 19-20, 30-31.  As the master in the Gospel readings entrusted his possessions to his servants, likewise the husband entrusts his heart to his wife.  She does not let him down, for “she brings him good, and not evil, all the days of her life.”  It is her heart that moves her hands to the good of her husband, the poor and the needy and not her charm or beauty that give useful service all the years of her life.  “The woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.”  This is not the fear that is crippling and trembling but the Old Testament fear that respects God as the God over us to be glorified and obeyed in all that we are and do.

Matthew 25:14-30.  In this parable the master entrusts his possessions to his servants to each in proportion “according to his ability.”  When the master came back, he settled accounts with them.  The first two servants doubled their master’s possessions but the third simply returned the master’s possessions without any increase, since he had done nothing.  To the first two the master said, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”  Then he rewards them with even greater responsibilities, saying, “Come, share your master’s joy.”  However, to the third he says, “You wicked, lazy servant!” and orders him to be thrown into the darkness outside, calling him a useless servant.  Those who show themselves to be responsible with the master’s possessions will be rewarded greatly but those who are not, shall be punished severely.  St. Paul wrote in his second letter to the Corinthians (5:10): “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive recompense according to what he did in the body, whether good or evil.”  Clearly the master that Jesus is referring to in this parable is himself.  Some say that the possessions or talents that Jesus is referring to are our various abilities.  I think Jesus is referring to the graces he gives us to make ourselves and the world around us better, thus giving him glory and building his kingdom.  His graces are a share in his infinite power with us to enable us to do his will here on earth.  As it says in the Our Father prayer: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  To refuse to respond affirmatively to God’s graces to better ourselves and the world around us is to put everything into the devil’s hands to deal destructively with us and the world around us.  Evil is defined by our refusal to use God’s graces, i.e. to respond to God’s intervention within us to move us in the direction he wants us to go, and thus we are an unresponsive, irresponsible people.  In the Nicene Creed we say every Sunday, “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.”  Jesus will simply read back to us our lives.  That will be our testament either to our eternal salvation or destruction.

 

1 Thessalonians 5:1-6.  Paul writes, “For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief at night.”  The ‘day of the Lord’ is an expression that meant the Second Coming of Jesus that was to be the end of the universe and the final judgment day for all.  Paul goes on to criticize the attitude that says ‘Peace and security,’ that is there is nothing to be worried about.  All is well and we do not have to be responsible to any God.  We have everything under our control. But Paul writes, “therefore, let us not sleep as the rest do, but let us stay alert and sober,” be ready and not caught irresponsibly unprepared as useless servants.

 

32A23.   Wisdom 6:12-16.    Jesus said to Peter in Matthew 16:23b:  “You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”  Wisdom is to think as God thinks, to know as God knows.  Wisdom is “found by those who seek her.”  God gradually enables us to be of one mind and one heart with him as we grow to love him more and more.

Matthew 25:1-13.   The parable of the ten virgins is an ‘end-time’ parable in which Jesus seeks to prepare us for the end of our time on this earth.  The oil that the foolish virgins lack and the wise virgins have is the spiritual life of the Lord that we grow in daily by living with the Lord as the center of our life.  Being lost in the physical tasks of this earth and ignoring the Holy Spirit’s life within us leaves us unprepared to go with the Lord when he calls us from this earth.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18.  The early Christians assumed that the Lord would soon be returning a second time (that is, some time after his ascension) to take up to heaven all the living who remained faithful to him.  The Thessalonians thought that those who died before Jesus’ Second Coming would not be taken up to heaven because they were not still living at the Second Coming.  Paul assures them that, whether dead or alive, all the faithful would be taken up.  The point is that the Lord will take up all who are faithful to him and leave the rest behind.

32A20.   Wisdom 6:12-16.   Wisdom here is personified as a woman who brings the beauty of her wisdom or penetrating understanding to all who wish to grasp far more than the superficial.  The old expression ‘mother wit’ seemed to capture the idea of a wisdom that a simple young girl had to develop to raise young children and steer a young husband so to have a nurturing wholesome home.  Wisdom is developed with the abundant presence of the Holy Spirit who enables us to avoid the pitfalls of getting lost in the emotions that lead one to wander hopelessly in the deviant directions that this world can take us.  Wisdom “makes her rounds, seeking those worthy of her, and graciously appears to them in the ways, and meets them with all solicitude.”  That wisdom is the Holy Spirit.

Matthew 25:1-13.   Jesus’ parables are pointed, i. e., do not intend to say everything but just make a simple point. By our baptism we are promised or betrothed to the Lord.  The ten virgins or betrothed represent the assembly or people of the Church whose task it is to prepare themselves to be joined as in a marriage, just as a bride and groom, to God for all eternity.  We are a mixed community or assembly, some who take that preparation seriously and some who do not.  The foolish, that is to say, those who did not act wisely, did not prepare themselves to meet the Lord whenever he might come.  The oil that would give them the light to see through the darkness of this world is a life of holiness or union with the Holy Spirit.  Without that light we cannot make our way.  If God comes to call us and we are not ready, the door will be locked.  If we do not strive to be holy day in and day out, making ourselves ready for the Lord whenever he calls us from this life, we will hear him say to us: “Amen, I say to you, I do not know you.”  There is no happy ending for those who live foolishly, not wisely.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18.  Apparently some of the Thessalonians were thinking that those who had died, which is to say ‘fallen asleep’, before the Lord came the second time at the end of the world, would not be taken up to heaven because they did not stay alive to wait for the Lord’s arrival.  Paul assures them that all, both those who died in Christ and those who remained on earth alive in Christ “shall always be with the Lord.  Therefore, console one another with these words.” November is the end of the liturgical year when we must contemplate our spiritual readiness to greet the Lord as we get closer and closer to our last days here on earth.  Now especially we ought to consider his call to stand before him in judgment.  May our life in Christ grow and strengthen daily.

32A.   Wisdom 6:12-16.  This reading & the psalm calls upon us to see religion far more as a warm relationship that is to be nurtured and developed and grown in our hearts.  I personally see growth in wisdom as primarily the work of God the Holy Spirit so to lead us by union with Jesus to God the Father.  The more we seek it, the more we will find it.  In turn the more we use the wisdom of the Spirit to gain knowledge of the Will of God the Father and in light of that knowledge to become ever more obedient to God’s Will, the closer the Spirit will come to us  to enlighten us even more.  The Spirit will breathe God’s divine life into us so that that is the life we actually live daily.  Jesus in the Parable of the Talents (Mt. 25:29) said: “For to everyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich; but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”

Matthew 25:1-13.  What is this oil that the five virgins had and the other five did not have?  It is the holiness that they have tended to and nurtured over the years that shows that the light or flame of the presence of the Spirit is within them.  They were prepared for the coming of the groom, Jesus, when he was to finally come to call them to be his own in heaven.  The foolish ones had no oil, no holiness because in their foolishness they did not seek the wisdom of the Spirit to grow in the grace or holiness that would show that the flame or the life of the Spirit dwelled within them.  Because the oil of holiness was lacking in the life of the foolish, the Lord, the groom said, “I do not know you.”  In ending Jesus said, “Stay awake, for you do not know the day nor the hour.”  To be awake spiritually is to have the life of holiness that comes from Spirit to be our life day in and day out.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18.   In the Gospel we are called upon to stay awake and be ready at any hour for the call to judgment, in other words, to be holy always.  However, in the Epistle reading, the reference to “those who have fallen asleep” is to those who died before the Lord has come in the Second Coming, the end of the world, to call his own to heaven.  The belief among many Christians not long after the Ascension was that Christ was to come soon and call his holy ones to heaven but that one needed to be alive to be called.  Paul reassures the Thessalonians and us that at the Second Coming “the dead in Christ will rise first” and then those “who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.”  November is the month for us to bring strongly to mind the universal ‘end time’, the Second Coming of Christ and the ‘end time’ for each individual, i.e., our death.  The Lord is the loving God the Father who gives us the Holy Spirit who, with our loving cooperation, sanctifies us to prepare us to be called to heaven.   Jesus assures us when he said to Nicodemus in Mt. 3:16-18: “For God so loved the world the he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”

 

PS: The Holy Spirit gives us the spiritual knowledge/guidance of where we are going, what we are to do, the will to do it, and the strength to follow through and maintain the course.

31A23.   Malachi 1:14b-2:2b, 8-10.  The Jewish priests were not remaining faithful to the Torah and were leading the people away from the practice of true Judaism.  The Lord says to them for their infidelity: “I will send a curse upon you.”

Matthew 23:1-12.   The scribes and the Pharisees had the position of religious authority.  So Jesus says, “Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example.  For they preach but they do not practice.”  They used the Jewish religion for their own personal advantage and not to promote the love of God and neighbor.  Make of God your only true religious authority.  Serve him alone. Stand humbly before him as his servant and God will see you as righteous in his sight.

1 Thessalonians 2:7b-9, 13.  Paul reaches out to the Thessalonians with a love from the depths of his heart.  The fullness of love is giving not only some things that we have but giving one’s very self.  Through Paul and his companions God gave his very self to the Thessalonians.  The word or gospel of God that they received was presence of God working in their hearts.

31A.   Malachi 1:14-2:2b, 8-10.  God comes in this reading in divine authority and omnipotence to challenge the Hebrew priests who have been unfaithful to his covenant, the covenant made with their fathers (ancestors).  Their unfaithful leadership has caused many followers to no longer follow God’s ways.  They have become contemptible and base in God’s eyes for using their responsibility of leadership to lead the people away from God and God’s covenant.

Matthew 23:1-12, Jesus recognizes that the scribes and Pharisees, receiving their authority as successors to Moses, have the right to command observance of their teachings but not the right to have the people imitate their actions.  As Jesus says in this gospel, “For they preach but they do not practice.”  “All their works are performed to be seen.”  “They love places of honor.”  In their actions they seek to give glory to themselves, not to God.  Jesus preaches not to seek to be addressed by terms of respect as a way of seeking honor for oneself but not for God.  Jesus says, “The greatest among you must be your servant,” as a way of serving God by humbly serving one another and not be the one who wants to be exalted above others and in others’ eyes.  The position of authority they have received is to serve others and not themselves.

1 Thessalonians 2:7b-9, 13.  Paul in the first reading starts off, “We were gentle among you, as a nursing mother cares for her children.  With such affection for you, we were determined to share with you not only the gospel of God, but our very selves as well, so dearly beloved had you become to us.”  Paul, along with his fellow missionaries, Timothy and Silvanus, emphasizes the depths of their love for the Thessalonians in sharing the nurturing milk of life-giving Gospel of the Lord.  In sharing the gospel they were giving some of the life force that was their life too.  So much did they give of themselves that they depended not on the Thessalonians for material support but, “working day and night in order not to burden any of” them, they supported themselves.  “In receiving the word of God from hearing” them, they “received not a human word but, as it truly is, the word of God, which” continued to work in them to build them up to be the people of God.  The gospel of God, which is the good news of Jesus, who is the way, the truth and the life within us, was so much a part of the people  Paul, Silvanus and Timothy had become, that in sharing it they were sharing something of themselves as a mother shares the milk from her breast.

30A23.    Exodus 22:20-26.  “Thus says the Lord: ‘You shall not molest or oppress an alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt.  You shall not wrong any widow or orphan.”  God cares for all peoples for he created all peoples and cares for all the peoples he created, not only the Hebrews, his Chosen People.  God says about himself, “I am compassionate.”  In saying so God is saying we should be compassionate as he is.  As we enjoy the love God has for us, we bring that joyful love to others.

Matthew 22:34-40.   It is quite interesting that it was out of hatred of Jesus because he was challenging their misuse of their leadership of the Jewish religion that the Pharisees and scribes were asking Jesus about the law of love.  Jesus simply quotes the two great commandments as they were from the Old Testament.  However, the second commandment left much to be desired.  It said that we were to love our neighbor but did not include those who were not our neighbors.  However, in John 13:23, Jesus said, “I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.”  In other words, love everyone, not only your neighbor because Jesus loves everyone.

1 Thessalonians 1:5c-10.  Paul declares that the Thessalonians “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to await his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus, who delivers us from the coming wrath.”  When we love God above all things, he give us that divine spiritual life that is above anything our earthly bodies can give us.

30A20.   Exodus 22:20-26.   There are many laws in the Old Testament but the underlying absolute rule is to act and think as God acts and thinks.    Jesus in Matthew 16:23c rebukes Peter as he says, “You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”  Today’s reading says one must return the neighbor’s cloak that was given as a pledge “before sunset; for this cloak of his is the only covering he has for his body.  What else has he to sleep in?  If he cries out to me, I will hear him; for I am compassionate.”  The word compassionate literally means that God feels what the needy neighbor feels.  God unites himself to the one who is needy and who pleads to God for help.  In Jesus’ parable in Matthew 26: 25, the king says to those who did not help the needy, “what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.”  As God said above, “for I am compassionate,” which is to say, God feels what the needy neighbor feels.

Matthew 22:34-40.    Jesus says, “This is the greatest and the first commandment.”  “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This means that everything, without exception, belongs to God.  The second says that one is to love his neighbor, which is one’s fellow countryman, as one loves one self.  In John 13:34 Jesus changes that second commandment saying, “I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so also you should love one another.”  With this change we are not only to love our neighbor but also everyone including our enemies.  In Matthew 5:43-45 Jesus said: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he  makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.”  In John 5:48 Jesus sums it up by saying, “So be perfect, just as your heavenly father is perfect” (holy).  If we fully respect and treat God as our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our minds, then for us he is the measure of everything.  His Will, which is infinitely more expansive than the Ten Commandments, is life for us.  In place of the Torah or Law of the Old Testament, the divine Person of God and his Will is now our law and measure of who we should be and how we should live.

1 Thessalonians 1:5c-10.  Paul makes a great point of how preaching the gospel is accomplished by one’s manner of life when he writes: “you know what sort of people we were;” “You became imitators of us and of the Lord;” “You became a model for all the believers.”  We preach Jesus by what and how we live and by the living examples of faith we have become.  The Thessalonians “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God.” Paul says of the Thessalonians, “In every place your faith in gone has gone forth.”  They lived the love of God with all their heart, with all their soul, and with all their mind and by their love of one another.

30A.   Exodus 22:20-26.  Yahweh was mindful of the oppression of the Israelites in Egypt.  He was compassionate for them and so released them from their captivity.  In line with this Sunday’s first reading, Leviticus 19:32-34 also says, “When an alien resides with you in your land, do not molest him.  You shall treat the alien who resides with you no differently than the natives born among you; have the same love for him as for yourself; for you too were once aliens in the land of Egypt. I, the Lord, am your God.”  God treats with compassion all peoples and wants us to do the same.  God finds it reprehensible to take advantage of others, when we have the opportunity, by doing them harm.

Matthew 22:34-40.  In Matthew 22:37 Jesus replies to his questioner, “You shall love the Lord, your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the greatest and the first commandment.  The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”  On reading this, I have always asked myself, if you truly love God with absolutely everything you have, you would nothing left with which to love yourself or your neighbor.  In turn I have thought that, if you truly love God, then you must love his Will for you.  His Will for us is that we love everyone he loves.   1 Jn. 4:20-21 says, “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.  This is the commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.”  Also 1 Jn. 3:15-18 reads, “Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer and you know that no murderer has eternal life remaining in him.  The way we came to know love was that he laid down his life for us; so we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.  If someone who has worldly means sees a brother in need and refuses him compassion, how can the love of God remain in him?  Children, let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth.”

1 Thessalonians 1:5c-10.  As it said in the quote just before, as the Lord laid down his life for us, so we ought to lay down our lives for others.  This reading calls us to be imitators of Jesus and so to be a model for all believers, as in the lives of the Thessalonian Christians something of Jesus himself was seen.  Paul and Jesus are calling upon us to love as we have been loved so that in every place our faith in God goes forth like seeds to sow faith in others.  As with those to whom Paul wrote this letter, we are to turn away from the allurements of this world “to serve the living and true God and to await his Son,” “Jesus, who delivers us from the coming wrath.”  Jesus says in Jn. 13:34-35, “I give you a new commandment: love one another.  As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.  This is how all will know that you are my disciples, you have love for one another.”